In a piece published by RollingStone.com on Sunday, director Martin Scorsese writes about his nearly 50-year friendship and collaboration with the late Robbie Robertson.
Using stream of consciousness imagery and such techniques as sharing his thoughts in the form of a movie script, Scorsese attempts to impart the essence of a relationship that began even before they worked together to document The Band's final concert in the 1978 film The Last Waltz and lasted until Robertson’s death this summer.
He begins by describing a particularly paranoid experience he had when the two were living together on Mulholland Drive in L.A. around the time of that film. He mentions an earlier trip to Europe together, during which they decide that they're "bums" after experiencing the works of the great European artists at a museum in Florence, Italy.
He talks about watching films with Robertson at the Mulholland house and notes the directors Robertson preferred, [Ingmar] Bergman, [Jean] Cocteau, and, especially, [Luis] Buñuel. He describes listening to Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey at the end of a particularly surreal evening, and says the album was "sort of [their] sign off."
Scorsese describes the years he spent listening to music for his films with Robertson, the imagery Robertson brought to The Band's songs, what he brought to some of Scorsese's movies, how planning, shooting, editing and mixing The Last Waltz had kept him "alive for those two years," and he reveals that they had a ritual phone call on Thanksgiving, the day The Band staged The Last Waltz concert, throughout the rest of their friendship,
He mentions Robertson's music for his upcoming film, Killers of the Flower Moon, then explains that that Robertson "never talked much about being sick." He concludes: "Now I’m mad again. I’m mad he didn’t get the blessing of seeing people experience his work on the score of Killers of the Flower Moon."
On Nov. 17th at The Boulder Theater, it is the 19th Annual Last Waltz Revisited , tickets on sale now.